Chocolate Bar Pie

My first cookbook was an old family cookbook that my Mom gave me when I was 12 or 13 years old. It is pretty basic, just typed recipes sandwiched between each other and stapled together.

But as measly as this cookbook looks, it holds priceless treasures; recipes from my Great-Grandmother, Grandmother, Great Aunts, Mother, her siblings and cousins.

This cookbook holds the recipes I grew up with. The ones that graced our table at Thanksgiving and Christmas, the recipes for meals that filled our bellies on a cold winter’s night and desserts that made us giddy with delight.

This Chocolate Bar Pie is as easy as it comes and I am sure one version or another lies within the pages of many family cookbooks. But this is my Mom’s version. The one I remember her making as a surprise dessert for Sunday dinner. The one I remember watching her cut marshmallows, not on a cutting board, but using a knife and her fingers directly into the sauce pan. The one where she would always buy an extra candy bar and let us each have a piece and ‘spoil’ our dinner.

I even remember her making this pie with a traditional Hershey’s bar, for us when we were kids because we didn’t like almonds.

My Mom still makes this pie for holidays and special occasions and now I do too. It is rich and creamy and a little slice goes a long way. My more “sophisticated” adult palate now enjoys the crunch the almonds add to the otherwise creamy consistency of this pie.

But I know one day, I will go back to making this pie without almonds for my kids; just as my Mom did for me so many years ago.